FSF Adventures, 40 Harvey Gardens, Charlton, London SE7 8AJ
£3.00 (state 128K or 48K version)
48K & 128K

You're Alaric Blackmoon, a down-and-out mercenary and swordsman. The dreaded Xixons, a nasty bunch of lizards, have returned to attack Hecate after a 200 year leave of absence. You must find the Axe of Kolt and deliver it to King Kelson (a relative of Kolt) as only the Kolt line of heirs can trigger the special powers the axe contains. Thus will Hecate be saved.

The upper window displays the location description. It never scrolls off the top of the screen, so you never have to enter a 'redescribe' command just to get the location description back. The lower window is the active area featuring text input, messages and so on. Colours are used intelligently and choice of font is good: Kolt's text is very readable. There's a 'vocab' command which brings up a screen full of useful words and an 'info' command which lists some of Kolts useful facilities.

Direct commands are very friendly. 'Examine' can be abbreviated to 'X', while 'Get' can be input as 'G'. Another nifty feature cuts in if you die: the program asks you if you wish to be reincarnated - say 'yes' and the game restarts at the time of your last Ramsave. You can Examine All 'carried', 'worn' or 'here' and there's an Examine Me command which, unlike many adventures which utilise this option as a gimmick, proves very useful, especially during the later stages.

The imagination and thought that's gone into the puzzles makes the game enjoyably frustrating - if you know what I mean. You'll need lateral thinking by the bucketful. Even objects you may think have served their use may be needed for a completely different purpose later on. Axe of Kolt is a little gem - the best adventure game I've played this year.

Title: The Axe Of Kolt
Price £3 for 48K/128K tape versions/£5 for +3 disk version
Publisher: FSF Adventures, 40 Harvey Gardens, London SE7 8AJ
Reviewer: Mike Gerrard

I thought FSF's first adventure, Magnetic Moon, was quite good. I thought the second, Starship Quest, was better. Now the latest release, The Axe Of Kolt, has zoomed into the coveted Megagame bracket by fulfilling all the promise of those earlier titles.

In theory you should get better at adventures the more you write, but not everyone's able to do that. The author of FSF games, Larry Horsfield, certainly does, working harder each time to produce a polished product full of features and without glitch or hitch. Full marks, too, for supporting all Spectrums, as he's now added the +3 to his armoury, and it's that version I've played here. Of course, not all the features will appear in the smaller memory machines, but since I've seen more than my fair share of games in all three versions in the past I can safely say that 48K owners needn't be put off - Larry often makes it look like you're playing a disk-based adventure anyway!

Axe is a four-part game, and massive with it, boasting the bonus of a £50-first-prize competition. An entry form comes with every game, and since the closing date isn't until 31st May 1991, there's plenty of time for everyone around the world to enter.

You take the role of Alaric Blackmoon, once a swordsman and mercenary, but now in enforced retirement as you no longer have a sword. You're also penniless, so a bit of paid pillaging wouldn't go amiss. One cold November day, you turn up in Hengemire, just another stop on your journeys from village to village, living off the land, earning a bit of food and B&B by doing the odd job here and there. Except, of course, that in Hengemire all that's going to change (surprise, surprise).

The screen is neatly laid-out, and the versatile PAW has once again been used to good effect. IT and ALL commands are understood, and much use is made of speech commands to interact with the many other characters that people the adventure. Not only can you TALK TO other people, you can also SAY something direct to them (like SAY TO LORNA, "DROP THE HAGGIS"). Furthermore, you can ASK LORNA ABOUT THE AXE or convey information too - TELL LORNA ABOUT THE BEDBUGS. If you die in the game you're given a resurrection option, which restores you to your last RAMSAVEd position. Other little helpful features are VOCAB (a list of many useful verbs and other commands) and INFO (a list of one or two letter abbreviations for certain common inputs). Then there's HELP, which gives you a telephone helpline number.

From the start I made a couple of moves and with the experience of years of adventuring behind me immediately found myself outside the Dragonslayer's Arms. The bad news was that it was shut, so I wandered off again, found myself a clapper without a bell and returned to the pub just in time to give the landlord a helping hand. This earned me a bed for the night, a meal and all the ale I could sup. This is the life!

I examined a few things in the pub (like the landlord's wife!), and before very long a stranger turned up and the story unfolded which set me off on my quest for the Axe of Kolt. You may think it's a long time getting started, but the village is convincingly created, there's lots going on, people wandering around, signs to read, and it's much better than an opening screen that merely says "Your quest is to find the Axe of Kolt. Off you go..."

This thoroughness applies throughout the game (at least in the first two parts which I managed to look at). For once the interaction with other characters has come off, and this too adds to the atmosphere and makes you believe in the whole thing, which is definitely the sign of a good adventure. Usually, speech is limited to SAY "HELLO", and even that's clumsily done. Here it works effectively, provided you jot down the names you come across, like Kolt, Xixon, Dwarks and so on. Someone, somewhere, has information about them, and, just as in real life, you have to ask a variety of people before you get the right answer.

I also like the fact that co-operation is mainly the way to succeed in this game. In need of some wood part-way into it, I just went and asked the likeliest source and he actually gave me some, just when I was expecting him to send me off in search of a new saw or a gold coin or something. Mind you, it's not all love and peace (man) - there's a fair bit of chopping heads off too, but not enough to put off the people who don't like that approach to adventuring. Yup, it really is a game for everyone.

I did try to find something to moan about - a bad spelling, silly solution to a problem - but in the end I gave up looking. It'd be petty to ask for graphics, but if there were pretty pix you'd have to chop some of that background stuff that makes the game so convincing. So, if you want to be convinced - buy it!

FSF (Fantasy and Science Fiction) adventures is run by world-renowned tall person Larry Horsfield. Larry has, in the past, tended to concentrate on bringing out multi-part adventures of the highest imaginable quality. Since his last real blockbuster - an epic four-parter that sneaked into my all time top fifteen adventures and received a YS megagame rating - I'm talking about the legendary Axe of Kolt - he's quietly been working on more titles. Some are his own creations while others have been inspired by other people but coded by Larry. It's about time we had a brief look at FSF'ss winter collection so here we go with a focus on FSF...

Title: Axe of Kolt, The
48K tape... £2.49
128K tape... £2.99
128K +3 disk... £3.49
Reviewer: Tim Kemp

Another character Larry's developed is that of Alaric Blackmoon - his first appearance was in Axe of Kolt. Axe is a four-part fantasy adventure full of derring-do, blood 'n' guts and spectacular and mysterious quests.

You begin the game as an out-of-work mercenary, but believe me you are soon hacking and slashing all over the place. The Xixon Lizardmen are on the rampage after being banished for 200 years, and they must be stopped. The plot boils down to this... the Lizardmen can only be vanquished if you can find the magical axe of King Kolt that was last used to defeat the Xixon, but was buried with Kolt on his death in a secret tomb. Yep, you guessed it, you don't know the tomb's location. There are more twists and turns in this game than a snake who's swallowed a corkscrew!

Right, looks like we've come to the end of what's turned out to be a rather detailed look at the FSF collection. If I had to sum up what I think FSF stands for I'd have to say that most of the games offer a great challenge, are full of rich evocative text that conjures up vivid images of the realms that you find yourself adventuring in. and there are more than enough plot twists and turns to keep you guessing. Larry Horsfield doesn't release games all that regularly (which is one reason why you'll not find him frequenting these pages too often) but when he's got a newie coming out you'll find me at the head of the queue waiting for it!

All games available from FSF Adventures, Larry Horsfield, 40 Harvey Gardens, Charlton, London SE7 8AJ. Cheques and POs made payable to FSF Adventures. Overseas customers please add: 50p per order (Europe) or £1.00 (the world).